7 October--Me and HH.(Poem)

 
7 OCTOBER--ME AND HH 
 
(This won second prize in an internet poetry competition on 
famous people with whom one shared birthdays. By way 
of contrast, the author of the winning poem shared a 
birthday with Emily Dickinson.) 
 
   My natal day I share with the Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, 
   but I hope despite this fact that we are not too similar. 
 
   Both, I am told, as children, liked collecting postage stamps, 
   while he when entering adulthood liked setting up death-camps. 
 
   His father was a school-master, and mine a politician, 
   hut both of us, in different ways, inherited ambition. 
 
   On leaving school I got a job with the local daily press, 
   he tried out chicken farming, then started the SS. 
 
   In different ways and times, it seemed, the both of us succeeded. 
   I have several Jewish friends, but I don't think that he did. 
 
   And then I went to Law School (a foolish thing to do), 
   hut Heinrich also made mistakes, and landed in the poo. 
 
   I studied torts, he torture--those were our salad days. 
   And we both of us studied murder, but in quite different ways. 
 
   We found we both were walking roads that had no turning back, 
   he got a suit, I got a robe, both in the colour black. 
 
   I sometimes like to sail a boat upon the ...